


orion's belt

by freloux



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dance, Astronomy, Dancers and Choreographers, F/M, interpretive dance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-06-06 01:50:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6733111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freloux/pseuds/freloux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens when Clara Oswald, lately of the Coal Hill Dance Company, meets the Doctor, reclusive Scottish choreographer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	orion's belt

Oppressive sweat-smell, chatter, the occasional snippets of pop music and d'n'b. All these lithe young bodies trying to make themselves somehow younger and more flexible in five minutes or less. It makes auditions their own special type of hell. Especially in an open audition like this, where everyone wants to make their name working on a solo with the Doctor. Clara rolls her eyes. Choreographers these days always have a flashy handle.

She stretches idly, reading the noticeboard in the lobby to pass the time. Pictures of TARDIS Productions and all their different artistic regenerations. The picture in the centre looks a bit familiar. The Doctor and a woman who seems like she is or was his creative partner, as she's shown up in some of the other images as well. Missy. Missy - Clara snaps her fingers, trying to recall. Thascalos, that's it. They talked about her in some of the history classes she'd taken at the conservatory. Went bonkers but before that she'd been good. Very Martha Graham.

In the bottom left of the noticeboard is a headshot. The Doctor, looking straight into the camera. He's handsome in an atypical sort of way. A bit scruffy, like something that's slunk into the corner of the room but still commands the space, drawing her back over and over.

Clara's still staring at the headshot when she hears her name over the intercom.

***

The Doctor isn't looking at her when she walks in. He's reading the bloody paper instead, the _Guardian_ open on his lap. She sizes him up, checking to see if he still looks anything like he did in the photos. Incredibly thin, a little sprawled out on a tiny metal folding chair as if he's not sure what to do with all his limbs. He's aged into his looks. This sort of grim determination in the way his face is set.

Clara plants herself centre stage in first position. Instinct. She says her name again, just in case he hadn't -

"Whenever you're ready. Just show me how you'd interpret this."

He clicks on the music. It's not the four-on-the-floor that Clara usually works with. Instead it's this foreign sound that's ethereal in the way it fills the studio.

The music doesn't call to her, not yet, but there's something in the way it curves toward her, enveloping her, that suggests it might if she gives it time. If he gives her the chance to dance with him, for him. So Clara throws herself into it. She reaches into the high level, curves into the middle level, melts down to the lowest level she can manage. Everything in her arsenal.

"That'll do." Music off, back to his paper. Didn't even -

So Clara gives him a curt nod. Years of training have made regaining her composure an automatic thing. There might be tears later, but you can't allow yourself that just yet. "Thank you for your time."

Shoulders back, head perfectly straight as she leaves. So what if he wasn't paying attention. She's aced it. She knows she's aced it.

***

Clara tends to stretch alone. Her friend Rigsy has long since left to dance for his own company, and Danny - well, she tries not to think about that. There are cliques here that form and reform nebulously, but she's never had an interest in any of them. Something in the way their conversation feels...small. So earth-bound. She's always known that there was a world (maybe many worlds) beyond this. Coal Hill Dance Company, not a bad gig for a first thing after the conservatory. But surely it can't be the be-all and end-all?

Her phone buzzes on the top of her bag. Clara untucks her feet from the butterfly pose she's got herself in and examines the screen. _TARDIS Productions_. Hoping against hope, she answers the call.

The connection is terrible. It sounds like the Doctor is calling her from across the galaxy instead of from a studio in London. She can hear the sound of metal scraping on metal.

"Doctor? Hello?"

"Yes, hi - " He describes the solo in more detail, something about the constellations, Orion. How she should be at the studio at such and such a time. "Wednesdays, does that work for you?"

"It's - it's lovely." Clara blames hours of dancing and not enough water for her lightheadedness.

***

She arrives at the studio early the next morning. Stupidly early, really, but the Doctor must live at the studio because he greets her at the door with a takeaway mug of coffee in hand.

"You'll want a spare key," he says, launching right into things. "The building has a mind of its own."

The Doctor fishes a key out of a seemingly infinite number of pockets and hands it to her, continuing to ramble on. He's wearing black trainers that squeak, squeak under his voice as they trade narrow hallways for a series of rooms that eventually lead to a locked door. "Here we are, then."

Now that Clara's nerves aren't in the way, she can fully appreciate the sort of facilities he's got. The studio they'll be working in is enormous. Vaulted ceilings with high, far-off windows that let in the pre-dawn light and amplify it into something pure and bright. Two mirrored walls that reflect them back as Clara sets down her bag and the Doctor pulls a cassette player from seemingly nowhere. She's not really surprised that he uses a machine like that instead of, say, a smartphone. He seems like the type of analogue artist in a digital world who makes choices based on their 'authenticity.'

Leg up on the barre, arching back. Rotating every tiny muscle. Clara works her way absentmindedly through the Bartenieff Fundamentals. Something comforting in how the poses stay the same, even in a new space. She's used to choreographers looking at her when she warms up: analyzing her form, making subtle corrections. This is different. The Doctor is staring at her like he doesn't quite understand how humans work.

When she's done, he's practically bouncing on the balls of his feet, waving his hands around as he does so. "The idea is that it's the movement of the constellation set to music. You'll go from here - " He starts at one end of the space and twists his way to the other. " - to here. Very straightforward."

It's not straightforward at all. He asks her for all these complicated leaps and little half-turns that are just far enough out of her usual repertoire for her to feel unsteady. Again. Again. Eyebrows furrowed, studying her intently. The studio world she's always known. And here is this stranger making it all unfamiliar again. It's frustrating, but at the same time she wants this more than she's ever wanted - well, anything, really.

Back left step, back left step until she half-collapses. Back left step, back left step. She's trying to commit it to muscle memory when something shifts. It's like she's been walking on a cliff and just kept walking, not realizing that the land had run out: he's stopped the tape.

"What _now_?" she pants.

"No, see, you're doing this - " He imitates her. He actually imitates her. Shrinking his body and shuffling along the floor. She's stung by how uncanny it is. " - when what you're supposed to convey is this - "

He hits play on the cassette player again, lets the music ooze out. And his limbs, all those gangly limbs, are newly suffused with grace. He's moving around the studio, tracing the paths of the stars with his feet, his arms. Illustrating the vastness of the universe with his skinny body, a solitary dancer in the middle of the void.

***

He's working her harder than she's ever been worked in her life. Which is saying something because she's danced for some crazy buggers before - artists who did a residency at Coal Hill, coming in with some kind of grand vision. The Doctor is on the extreme end of that spectrum. Clara doubts he gets much sleep.

Her feet, always a bit of a sore spot, pick up new marks. Scabs and scars that weren't there before layer on top of the ones that have half-healed.

Usually she ignores it, but it finally gets to the point where she's got to run to Boots for medicine. This particular weekend, there's terrible crowds on the tube. Two or three poor souls forced to stand at the bottom of the escalators and shout futilely at the masses. "Stand on both sides, stand on the right as well." Clara stands on the escalator, barely supported by her aching feet. Waiting, crushed in by the people around her, kinesphere all shrunk. She breathes carefully. _In, two, three, out, two, three._ Taps her fingers on the rail, measuring the steps, mentally trading this space for the wider cosmos that the Doctor's got her dancing through.

As much as her feet hurt now, she has to believe that this will ultimately be worth it.

***

Clara expects him at the door each Wednesday so she's more than a little unsettled one morning when she has to let herself in. Either she's lost, or the studio isn't where it usually is, because she gets very confused very quickly. Passageways turn into open, airy spaces that abruptly shrink back into hallways which suddenly expand into studio space once more - except none of these are the rooms where she and the Doctor usually work. She's about to give up when she finally reaches a door she recognises. It's been left ajar.

She finds the Doctor fiddling with the cassette player. It spits out a song from the nineties which evidently isn't what he wanted because he frowns and kicks at the machine, only for the song to repeat. Eventually the player relents and starts a different song. He must be working on another dance. He counts out the beat and then starts to move, slowly undulating. Contracting, falling, then catching himself, all exactly in time to the music as if he's controlled by invisible strings.

There's something about seeing a person totally in their element. The Doctor is at one with the sound, complete fluidity to his gestures. His body looks different to her. Or maybe she's just noticing it for the first time. Lean muscles. Pants low on his hips. Grey shirt riding up every so often as he reaches towards the ceiling before jerking his arm back.

Until the moment breaks. He sees her in the mirror, watching him watching her. The Doctor stops abruptly and clicks off the cassette player. Comes over to her, breathing hard still, curls wet against his neck. She tries not to think about what they would feel like under her fingers.

"Rich bloke named Rassilon commissioned me," he says by way of explanation. "Right. Let's do your thing then."

Of course. Her thing. Except she'd rather keep studying him. Could watch him dance forever, really.

"Anytime, Clara." He looks quizzical, even concerned. "Are you all right?" There's a new note to his voice, a kind of velvety touch that travels all the way down to -

The music shakes her out of it. It's starting to beckon to her, just like she'd hoped it would: all the pieces beginning to come together. She holds her shape through the suspended notes, a visual illustration of time and space.

"And at the end, let's add a sustained tilt," the Doctor calls from the other end of the room.

At first she's infuriated. She's made it through the entire dance without any quibbles. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to his request, just another move designed to make her suffer. But when they run through it again, Clara is humbled. It does fit. The perfect close, if only she could manage it.

"Let's try that again, you were a bit wobbly."

Wobbly Clara remains. She frowns at her reflection.

"Here."

She senses his presence more than anything else. His hands on her hips, holding her steady. "Now reach back." A new weight: his body against hers, pushing her just enough before he stops and lets her take the wheel. Clara feels a telepathic connection with the studio that she's never had before. Heightened awareness of the surroundings and her place in them as she bends into the tilt.

Clara hangs there and the studio comes up to meet her as an invisible support.

***

She starts thinking about time differently when she's rehearsing with the Doctor. It's the quality of the effort actions he's giving her: much lighter flow, more indirect space. It's so much better than at Coal Hill, with its scuffed black floor, foam rollers hastily stuffed to one side, hectic pounding beats repeated into a drone. At TARDIS Productions, it's all clean lines and empty rooms. Time slows down in a way she couldn't describe if she tried.

The music is different as well, though it, too, is becoming more familiar to her. She's attuning herself to its cues. Even when he changes the choreography - making tweaks here and there, subtle shifts and refinements, a new place for her to travel - she can rise to the challenge now. Give as good as she gets.

She's beginning to feel like something between a creative partner and a sidekick, but a little less than an equal. A companion, perhaps.

They take to drinking coffee in the studio together at the end of rehearsal. Both of them backed up against the cool of the mirrors. It's been just the two of them here for so long that it seems silly that they've never actually talked. Although there was that one time she asked him about Missy and he got weirdly silent.

Come to think of it, there's a lot he's weirdly silent about.

He's always so fidgety. At first Clara thought it was the coffee - he seems to live on the stuff - but she's begun to see that it's just the way he carries himself. Constant motion as he watches her move, now one hand at the cassette player, now at the mirror to steady himself. Gesturing at this chalkboard he's wheeled in, explaining how at this part she's supposed to make it a bit more dynamic. The dance annotated in a curious, looping script.

So what if she's started noticing the way he uses his hands. Perfectly innocent.

***

For all her progress, there's one move that Clara still can't quite work. It's a pause in the middle of the song where she has to balance on her feet and press her heels together, lifting all the way up. Every time she starts to feel it in her calves, something twinges. Lift, lift, no - higher - again -

She can't go any higher, she's tried, and she's tried explaining this to him. Confused, he shows her the step once more as if it's something she should intuit right away. He lifts up above her and she's dwarfed. "Like you're carrying the universe."

"Why?" Clara asks.

The Doctor stops, as if he hadn't really thought about it before. "Why not?"

Clara is a little angry at that. The way he makes it look so easy. Underneath the anger, though, is a ripening insinuation of something else. She quashes this in an attempt to just focus on the dance again. Years of training, right?

***

The next week, rehearsal goes terribly. She's disconnected from each gesture, the effort actions coming through half-hearted. To make matters worse, he's changing the dance again until it's as if she's not dancing Orion at all but they're off in another group of stars altogether. Finally she stops, hands on her hips. He stands by the cassette player, enveloped by the weird music, and stares at her from across the room. It feels like she's here on earth and he's left her behind, adrift in some other world.

"That's enough," Clara explains. Sweat pricks up under her leotard. She feels all itchy and exposed. "I can go on this artistic journey with you, but there's a limit. I'm a real person." Tentative now, one foot in front of the other out on a tightrope. "With real feelings."

"Feelings," the Doctor repeats, as if the word is foreign to him.

She wants to kiss that stupid confused look off his face so she does, closing the space between them. He growls, actually growls, as he spins her around and pushes her into the wall, a sound that almost does it for her right then. The mirror is a cold shock to her overheated skin. They kiss for a long time, she thinks. All his fidgety essence has calmed now, focused instead on holding her. Clara's on the tips of her feet, pressing into the floor, the weight of it working all the way up her legs. She understands the move now. _Like you're carrying the universe._ She can actually feel it - something in the way the studio envelops her, the way the Doctor handles her.

Mostly, though, she's just operating on autopilot. Pulls off his ridiculous hoodie, helps him shuck off his jeans and pants and leave it all in a messy pile. When it comes time for him to take off her leotard, her tights, his stance shifts. Like his sense of corporeality, the way he's grounded, is completely beholden to her.

The tape has long since stopped playing, so when she climbs on top of him it's with a wet, eager noise that's embarrassingly loud in the otherwise empty studio. There's something kind of dirty about doing it here, in front of the mirrors. For a moment she's tempted to show off but stops when she sees the look on his face. He seems shy at first, moving inside her with short rhythmic patterns. It brings up an odd sense memory from Clara's time at the conservatory: a warm-up exercise where she had to imitate whatever her partner improvised. Holding onto him, underneath him now and following every motion he leads with. The Doctor deep inside her, urging her on as if he's choreographing this, too. When she comes, her body placement is all scattered. Her clarity of line gone to something erratic.

***

Another week, another Wednesday. The same strange, unearthly music rolling its way out of the cassette player. Clara exercising her muscle memory of what to do each time the song rises and falls until something interrupts her. She stops and turns. The Doctor slouching against the door, tapping his fingers on his thigh to count off the beat. An almost psychic reaching out.

He dances with her then. Bending up and arching back. Crossing and recrossing the studio together, the lonely hunter and his companion.


End file.
